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Google Classroom

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Re: Google Classroom

#41

Post by maccard »

pfortuny wrote: post #32
sagischwarz wrote: post #14

I think the public educational IT system should not be outsourced to the private sector, where schools completely lose control of the data and depend more or less on the good will of the company. University courses should not be organized by Facebook and pupils should not be forced to use IT systems of non-trustworthy companies like Google, which earn money by profiling their customers. Maybe my view is too German, b…

In my country (Spain) it is most likely illegal to store the students' assignments on a server which does not belong to the University. Then again, the Univ. at which I teach outsources the e-mail to Microsoft. I tend to not understand. And I agree: students data belongs to the University, not to google.

My university outsources the email to Google apps for Education.

Re: Google Classroom

#42

Post by Linell »

yincrash wrote: post #19
sagischwarz wrote: post #14

I think the public educational IT system should not be outsourced to the private sector, where schools completely lose control of the data and depend more or less on the good will of the company. University courses should not be organized by Facebook and pupils should not be forced to use IT systems of non-trustworthy companies like Google, which earn money by profiling their customers. Maybe my view is too German, b…

Many Universities already use stuff like Blackboard[1] which for the most part is TERRIBLE (at least how I remember it in school.) These pieces of software are already around, and if anything competition in the space will hopefully make things better. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboard_Inc .

My university used a combination of Blackboard and Moodle, both of which are terrible. Your memory serves you correctly.

Re: Google Classroom

#43

Post by stephenr »

cbhl wrote: post #35
Steuard wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But as far as I know, Blackboard (or Moodle or Sakai or...) data is stored locally at your institution, not housed on a Google server somewhere. I think the data mining possibilities are much lower in that case. I'm all in favor of disruptive competition in that market, mind you! But I don't think it's easy.

Not true. Blackboard has a cloud offering. Plus, many competing products also rely on centralized servers.

What little information I can find, indicates that Blackboard is self-hostable, and that the "hosted" option they provide is actually an extra service.

The argument is against a solution that has no possibility for self-hosting and maintaining control of data. That they offer a hosted/SaaS option is irrelevant, because they also offer a regular self-hosted solution.

Re: Google Classroom

#45

Post by ceras »

stephenr wrote: post #28
donw wrote: post #2

If this is a Blackboard competitor, that's good news. Google definitely has the bankroll and patent magazine to go toe-to-toe with them, which could open up a lot of options in the higher education space.

I have never heard of or used this Blackboard software that keeps being referenced, but I find it hard to believe that Google entering nay market is "good news" for anyone except Google fanboys. Google has an atrocious history of entering a market with commercial and open source options, obliterating them all with "hosted, free" solutions, feeding all the new data into their already massive profile building infrastru…

Do you have an example of that sequence happening (other than Google Reader)?

Re: Google Classroom

#46

Post by jrells »

As much as I would love for educational institutions (and government in general) to fund open source projects to solve their needs, that doesn't seem very realistic right now. Maybe when startup culture becomes the norm. The people who make decisions about technology purchases in education are, in my experience, non-technical and highly risk averse. They pay absurd prices for outdated software. There is little pressure to create a better product. I have to use Moodle for my teaching, and I'm sure anything Google creates will be far superior. This was at the top of my startup ideas list, but I'm glad someone is working on it.

Re: Google Classroom

#47

Post by seanc »

Diederich wrote: post #10

Crittenden Middle School in Mountain View has switched over to this, we love it. The amount of parent/student/teacher collaboration and transparency is unparalleled. BTW: they're not using Chrome Books, but some kind of fancy HP Android tablets.

Having experience with it, how do the parents connect in? Our board uses Apps for Education, but I don't have a parent account.

I suppose I could get in the game by using my child's account, but often it is helpful to interact directly with teachers.

Re: Google Classroom

#48

Post by giardini »

Why tie yourself to the current state of technology (keyboard, pc, printer), which may be defunct in 8-15 years?

Let the kids learn to use computers but limit it specifically to that. In the classroom emphasis should be on teaching the subject (and let them use pencil, pen and paper).

And I'm appalled that public schools now teach computer skills but have abandoned cursive writing.

Re: Google Classroom

#49

Post by on_and_off »

sagischwarz wrote: post #14

I think the public educational IT system should not be outsourced to the private sector, where schools completely lose control of the data and depend more or less on the good will of the company. University courses should not be organized by Facebook and pupils should not be forced to use IT systems of non-trustworthy companies like Google, which earn money by profiling their customers. Maybe my view is too German, b…

If I remember correctly, Google does not use its classroom clients data for profiling purposes. Even in that case, I think that education should not be locked down to a particular vendor and that it would be a very good use-case for open source solutions. I fear that it is not realistic in the near future though.

Re: Google Classroom

#50

Post by ben1040 »

josefresco wrote: post #6
smurfysmurf wrote: post #4

A good way to push the chromebook

Speaking of... I saw this on the Chromebook page "Chromebooks start at just $249 with a $30 management fee per device." Does Apple or other vendors charge a similar "management fee" to this? Unless I'm missing something, the fees will surpass the per-unit pricing before the first year.

It's a one-time fee to enroll the device in their MDM service, not an ongoing charge.
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